CHAPTER II

CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

The art of building, when it has attained the position peculiarly its own and adequate to its notional content is subservient in its products to an end, and a significance which it does not itself essentially possess. It becomes an inorganic environment, a whole that is co-ordinated and built conformably to the laws of gravity, whose configurations are subject to that which is severely regular, straight, rectangular, circular, the relations of definite number and quantity, that which is essentially limited measure and strict conformity to rule. Its beauty consists in this very relation to purpose, which, in its freedom from direct[75] admixture with what is organic, spiritual, and symbolical, and despite the fact that it subserves an end, nevertheless combines in an essentially exclusive totality, which suffers its own aim to appear through all its modifications, and in the harmonious co-ordination of its relations clothes that which is purely adapted to purpose in the forms of beauty. Architecture, however, at this stage[76] corresponds to its real notion, for the reason that it is not in a position to endow that which is in the most explicit sense spiritual with a fully adequate existence, and is consequently only able to inform what is external and devoid of spirit in its contrasted appearance with that which is spiritual.

We propose, in our consideration of this art of building, in which the relation of service is as truly a characteristic as that of beauty, to adopt the following course of argument.

In the _first_ instance we have to establish the _general notion_ and character of the same.

_Secondly_, we shall have to adduce the _particular_ fundamental determinants of the architectonic types which are deducible from the ulterior purpose which the classical work of art is erected to subserve.

_Thirdly_, we propose to survey the concrete reality which results from the development of classical architecture.

I do not, however, propose in discussing any of the above relations to enter into detail, but will limit myself to points of most general significance, a restriction more easy to observe in the present case than it was in that of the symbolical type of building.

1. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

(_a_) In conformity with the principle I have already more than once adverted to the fundamental idea of the genuine art of building consists in this, that the spiritual import is not exclusively reposed in the work of construction itself, which by this means becomes an independent symbol of ideal signification[77], but, with the converse result, that this significance secures its free existence outside the limits of architecture. This existence may be of a twofold character, to the extent in other words that another art of extensive range--I refer, above all, to the art of sculpture of the true classical type--sets before us and gives independent form to the significance, or the individual man in himself receives and gives effect to the same in the active verity of his life. Apart from this[78], these two aspects may still appear together. When, therefore, the Oriental architecture of the Babylonians, Hindoos, and Egyptians, on the one hand, gave symbolical form, in images of independent consistency, to that which was reckoned among these people as the absolute and true, or, from another aspect, enclosed, despite its external natural form, that which was conserved after death--in contrast to this what we find now is--whether we regard it relatively to art's activity, or to the life of actual existence--that the spiritual is _separated_ from the work of construction in _independent guise_ for itself, and architecture becomes the _vassal_ of what is spiritual, which constitutes the real significance and the determinating end. This end is consequently predominant. It controls the entire work; it determines the fundamental form of the same no less than its external skeleton, and neither suffers the material nor the individual's imagination and caprice to assert their independence in a self-substantive way, as was the case in symbolical architecture, or to develop, over and beyond the true purpose of the work, a superfluity of manifold parts and configurations, as is the case in the romantic type.

(_b_) In considering a construction of this character we have, then, first to ask ourselves not merely what are the circumstances under which it was erected, but what is its aim and purpose. To make its construction compatible with such considerations, to have a due regard for climate, position, and the environing landscape, to create a whole, one in spontaneous co-ordination, by a regard for all these aspects as subservient to one purpose, this is the task stated broadly, in the entire fulfilment of which the instincts and genius of the artist will appear conspicuous. Among the Greeks we find that it is public buildings, temples, colonnades, and halls utilized for the ordinary rest and commerce of the day, approaches, such as the famous ascent of the Acropolis in Athens, which are pre-eminently the objects of the builder's art. Private residences, on the other hand, were of a very simple character. With the Romans, on the contrary, it is the luxurious character of private houses, especially villas, which becomes prominent; and we may say the same thing of imperial palaces, public baths, theatres, circuses, amphitheatres, aqueducts, and springs. Buildings of this type, however, the utility of which throughout remains the commanding and directing principle, are merely able to accept beauty in a more or less decorative sense. The object most compatible with freedom of treatment in this sphere is that of religion--the temple-house as the enclosure of an individual which itself is appropriated by fine art, and placed before us by sculpture as the statue of the god.

(_c_) In the pursuit of aims such as those above mentioned, then, genuine architecture appears to be more free than the symbolic type of the previous stage, which seizes on the organic forms from Nature, nay, more free than sculpture, which is compelled to accept the human form it finds, and unites itself with them and their general relations as presented it. Classical architecture rather invents its forms and their configuration, so far as the content is concerned, from ends of spiritual import and in respect to form from human reason without any prototype. This greater freedom must, in a relative sense, be admitted; but the province in which it is exercised remains restricted, and the treatment which belongs to the classical art of building, on account of the rationality[79] of its forms is, taken as a whole, somewhat of an abstract and dry character.

Frederich von Schlegel has described architecture as a frozen music; and in truth both these arts repose on a harmony of relations, which admit of being referred to number, and are consequently readily grasped in their fundamental characteristics. In our own case the fundamental determinant for these essential traits and their simple, more serious and imposing, or more charming and elegant relations is supplied by the dwelling-house, that is, walls, columns, beams brought together in the wholly crystalline forms of scientific deduction. What the relations are we are not permitted to reduce to the bare determinants of number and measure. But an oblong, quadrilateral figure with right angles is more pleasing than a square, because in the case of the oblong we are more thus affected both by equality and inequality[80]. If the one dimension, namely breadth, is half as large as the other, we have a relation which pleases; with an oblong which is long and narrow the reverse is the case. Along with this the mechanical relations of support and being supported must likewise be maintained in their genuine measure and law; a heavy entablature, for instance, cannot rest on slender and delicate columns, or conversely great structures be prepared in order after all to lay on them something very light. In all these mutual relations, such as that of the breadth to the length and height of the building, the height of the columns to their thickness, the intervals and number of the columns, the character and variety or simplicity of decorations, the size of many plinths, borders, and so forth, a secret principle of rhythm[81] prevails among the ancients, which the instinct of the Greeks before all others has discovered; from which he may no doubt now and again deviate in points of detail, but the fundamental relations of which he is in general bound to preserve in order that he may not fall away from beauty.

2. THE FUNDAMENTAL DETERMINANTS OF ARCHITECTURAL FORMS TAKEN SEVERALLY

(_a_) We have already alluded to the old controversy whether the material of wood or stone is to be accepted as the point of departure in building, and whether also it is from this difference of material that the architectural types proceed. For the real art of building at least, in so far as it lays emphasis on the aspect of ultimate purpose and elaborates the fundamental type of the dwelling on the lines of beauty we may accept wood as the more original of the two.

This is the conclusion of Hirt, following in this respect Vitruvius, and his conclusion has been much disputed. I will in a few words offer my own view on the matter in dispute, In the ordinary course of such reflections we seek to discover the abstract and simple law for a concrete result assumed as already present. It is in this way that Hirt looks for the basic model of Greek buildings, in like manner the design[82], the anatomical framework, and finds it, so far as form and the material connected with it is concerned, in the dwelling and building of wood. No doubt a house as such is built mainly as a dwelling, a protection against storm, rain, weather, animals, and human beings, and requires an enclosure that is complete, in order that a family or a larger community of men may collect in independent seclusion and may look after their necessities and pursue their avocations in such seclusion. The house is a structure throughout with a definite purpose, a creation of mankind for human objects. For this reason we find him occupied upon it in many ways and with many objects, and the structure is articulated in an aggregate pile of all kinds of mechanical ways of mutual interlacement and imposition[83] in order to hold in position and secure, according to the laws of gravity, what men are compelled to look after, that is, the making stable what is erected[84], the closing it in, the support of what is superimposed, and not merely in the way of support, but, where the structure rests horizontally, the preservation of it in such a position, and, further, the uniting of all that clashes together at nooks and corners and so on. Now it is quite true that the house makes it necessary that the enclosure should be complete; and for this walls are most serviceable and safest; and from this point of view the building of stone appears most to answer the purpose. We may, however, with equal ease construct our fence with posts standing in juxtaposition, upon which then beams will rest, which at the same time both bind together and secure the perpendicular posts. Finally we come to the cover of all and roofing. In the temple house, moreover, the fact of enclosure is not the main fact of importance, but the feature of support and being supported. For this mechanical result the wooden structure is obviously the nearest to hand and the most natural. For the post, as that which supports, which at the same time requires a means of conjunction, and suffers the same to weigh on it in the shape of the cross-beam, constitutes here all that goes to the root of the matter. This essential division of parts and connection as well as the association of these aspects for a definite purpose belongs to the very nature of a wooden structure, which has its necessary material directly supplied it by the tree. In the tree we find already, without working upon it to any considerable or laborious extent, both post and beam, in so far as, that is, the wood already by itself possesses a definite form and consists of separate lengths, more or less in the straight line, lengths which can be brought together into rectangular corners no less than those which are acute or obtuse, and in this way provide corner pillars, supports, cross-beams and roof. Stone, on the contrary, never at any time possesses a form so definite. In contrast to the tree it is a formless mass, which first must be intentionally isolated and worked upon, in order that it may fit in juxtaposition to or superposition on other pieces and so once more be brought together with such. It requires, in short, several processes before it receives the form and serviceableness which wood already possesses independently. Moreover, stone material, when it is used in great masses, invites rather excavations and generally speaking, being _ab initio_ relatively formless, is capable of every kind of form, for which reason it is rather the congenial material for the symbolical as also the romantic types of building, while wood, by reason of its natural form of straight stems, is demonstrably without mediation more serviceable to that more severe type of purpose and observance of rule, which is the fountain-head of classical architecture. In this respect the structure of stone is mainly predominant with the self-substantive type of building, although even among the Egyptians, in their colonnades bordered with plinths, other considerations supervene, which the structure of wood is able more readily and in the first instance to satisfy. Conversely we do not find that classical architecture restricts itself entirely to buildings of wood, but, on the contrary, where it is elaborated in conformity with beauty, executes its buildings in stone; but in such a way, however, that we are from a certain point of view still able to recognize in the architectural forms the original principle of the wood structure, if also from a further one definite relations attach which do not belong to that kind of building as such.

(_b_) The points of fundamental importance, which emphasize the dwelling-house as the basic type of the temple, may be in all essential

## particulars enumerated as follows. If we consider with closer attention

the house in its mechanical relation to itself we shall find, in accordance with what we have already stated, on the one hand, masses of architectural form which serve as _support_ and, on the other, those that _are supported_ both being united for stability and security. Thirdly, we have before us the definite aspect of enclosure and limitation according to the three dimensions of length, breadth, and height. A construction, moreover, which, by the fact of its being a mutual correlation of definite aspects distinct from each other, is a concrete whole, is bound to declare this unity in its constitution. So we find here that essential differences arise which perforce assert themselves no less in their division and specific elaboration than they do in their rational _connexus._

(_α_) Of first importance in this respect to consider is the aspect of service in the way of _support._ When we speak of masses that support we commonly, under the influence of every-day needs, think of the wall as the most secure and reliable means of support. Support as such, however, as we have already seen, is not the exclusive principle of the wall; for the wall serves essentially as a means of enclosure and connection, and for this reason is a predominant feature in the romantic type of building. What is the peculiarity of Greek architecture is this, that it gives direct form to the principle of support by itself, and for this object employs columns as a fundamental contribution to the purpose and beauty of its architecture.

(_αα_) The aim of the column is to support and only this; and although a series of columns set up in a straight line make a boundary, such an enclosure falls short of a secure wall or partition, and is, in fact, expressly cancelled by the genuine partition and placed in a position of free independence. Owing to this exclusive object of support which pertains to the column, it is of first importance that it should display the aspect of such a purpose relatively to the weight which rests upon it. Consequently it should neither be too strong nor too slender, nor again too compressed, not mount upwards to such a height and with such ease as though the weight upon it was not treated seriously.

(_ββ_) And just as this column is thus differentiated from the enclosing wall, or fence, it is further from another point of view distinct from the mere _post._ In other words, the post is fixed directly in the ground and ceases with like directness at the precise point where a weight is reposed upon it. For which reason its determinate length, its commencement and termination equally appear as a negative limitation by means of something else, as a determinacy which is the result of chance, which it does not possess in its own right. Commencement and termination, however, are defining characteristics, which are part of the very notion of the supporting column, and consequently must declare themselves in it as the conditions[85] of its own substance. This is the ground of the fact that architecture, in the elaboration of its beauty, assigns to the column a base and a capital. In the Tuscan order, no doubt, we find no base; the column springs immediately from the ground. This being so, however, the length appears to the vision as something accidental. We are ignorant whether the column has not been to some undefined extent driven into the soil by the superimposed weight. In order that its commencement must not expose this undefined and accidental appearance it must with intention have the foot assigned to it, on which it stands, and which expressly enables us to recognize the commencement as in reality such. Art will therefore affirm as part of its function that the column begins at a certain place and for the rest it will make the security, and stable subsistence obvious to the eyes, and set the vision at rest in this respect also. For similar reasons our column should terminate in a capital, which is quite as much evidence of the real function of being a support as it is an affirmation of the fact that the column terminates here. This conception of a commencement and conclusion which are both deliberate is what affords us, in fact, the profounder explanation of base and capital. An analogous case is that of a cadence in music, which requires a secure resolution, or that of a book which should terminate without a full stop, or should start off without a capital letter, in the making of which, however, especially in the Middle Ages, large illuminated letters have been employed, with similar decorations at the work's conclusion, in order to bring prominently before the mind the facts of commencement and termination. However much, therefore, both base and capital appear to exceed what is obviously required we must not regard them as a decorative superfluity, or think of simply deducing them from the example of Egyptian columns, which still imitate the type of the vegetable kingdom. Figures of organic design, such as are represented by sculpture in animal and human form, begin and terminate in the free outlines they themselves present, for it is the rational organism itself, which gives outline to the form working thereon from its own intrinsic nature. Architecture, on the contrary, possesses for the column and its shapes nothing beyond the mechanical relation of support, and the spatial distance from the ground to the point where the weight that is supported terminates the column. Art, however, is bound to emphasize and disclose the particular aspects which lie together in this determinate relation for the reason that they are essential features of the column. Its precise length and its twofold boundary both above and below, that is, no less than its relation as support, must consequently not appear as coming to it incidentally and by virtue of something else, but must also be represented as immanent in its very being.

With respect to the form of column other than its base and capital, it is in the first place round, circular-shaped, for it has to stand up in free and independent self-seclusion. The most essentially simple, securely exclusive, rationally defined[86], and most regular line is in fact the circle. For this reason the column already proves from its shape that it is not adapted to form an even surface when placed in adjacent rows, as is the case with adjacent posts which are squared to the rectangular corner, and so present walls and partitions, but it has merely the object to offer a support under its own self-limitation. Moreover the columnar structure is ordinarily reduced in size gradually, as it ascends from one-third of its height, it becomes less in circumference and thickness, because the portions beneath have to carry that above, and it is felt necessary to emphasize and make obvious also this mechanical relation of the several parts of the column itself. Finally, we frequently find that columns are grooved; the reason of this is twofold, first, essentially to diversify the simple form, and secondly to make the columns appear more thick by means of such a division where this is necessary.

(_γγ_) Although, then, the column is set up in independent isolation it has none the less to make it appear evident that it is not placed there for its own sake, but as subservient to the mass which it is erected to support. In so far as the house requires a boundary on every side the singular column is therefore not sufficient, but others have to be placed adjacent to it, in other words we come upon the definite conception of a diversity of columns placed in a _series._ And when several columns support the same weight this common service is at the same time that which determines the equal height which they all possess and which unites them together, in other words the beam. This marks the transition from the aspect of support to the opposed object supported.

(_β_) That which columns support is the _entablature_ superimposed. The relation of most importance to be considered here is that of _rectangularity._ Not merely in its relation to the ground, but also in that to the entablature the supporting structure must be rectangular. For the horizontal position is by the laws of gravity that which is alone intrinsically the most stable and fitting, and the right angle the only definitely secure one. The acute and obtuse angles are, on the contrary, indefinite, and both vary in their degree and are subject to contingency.

We may differentiate between the component parts of the entablature as follows:

(_αα_) The _architrave_, that is, the main beam, rests immediately upon the columns which stand adjacent in a direct line of equal height; this unites the columns together and places on them a weight shared equally. As beam, and nothing more, it merely requires the form of four level surfaces mutually related as rectangular in all three dimensions and their abstract regularity. Owing to the fact, however, that the architrave as to one part of it is supported by the columns, and in another constitutes the stay of the rest of the entablature, and it is from this latter again that itself receives the necessary relation of being a support, progressive architecture also places in external relief this twofold aspect of the main beam by emphasizing in the upper portions of the aspect of support by means of jutting plinths and so forth. In this respect therefore the main beam is not merely related to the columns which support it, but in like degree to other burdens which repose upon it.

(_ββ_) These in the first instance constitute the _frieze._ The border or frieze consists in one part of it of the tops of the joists[87], which rest on the entablature, in another part of the spaces between the same. For this reason the frieze contains more essential differences than those distinguishing the architrave, and is bound to emphasize them more sharply, especially in the case where architecture, although executed in stone materials, follows more stringently the fundamental type of the wood construction. This is supplied us by the distinction between triglyphs and metopes. In other words triglyphs are the tops of the beams which are divided into three spaces, the metopes are the rectangular spaces between the separate triglyphs. In former times they were in all probability left bare, in later, however, they are filled up[88], nay, even covered over and decorated with reliefs.

(_γγ_) The frieze, moreover, which rests on the entablature, carries the _wreath_ or _cornice._ The function of this is to support the roof, which completes the whole upwards. Here we at once meet with questions of what form this final limitation is to be. For we may have in this respect two kinds of termination, either the horizontal and rectangular, or the one inclined to an acute or obtuse angle. If we look at the mere question of natural necessity we shall see that Southerners, who suffer little from rain and storm, merely require protection from sunlight; in their case a horizontal and rectangular roofing of house is likely to suffice. Northerners, on the contrary, have to protect themselves against inevitable showers of rain, against contingency of snow, that the weight may not prove too great; they require inclining roofs. At the same time, in the case of a fine art of building, mere necessity is not only of account; as art it has also to satisfy the profounder requirements of what is pleasing and beautiful. What mounts upwards from the ground must be conceived with a base, a foot, on which it stands and which serves it for _support_; and in addition to this columns and the partitions of genuine architecture supply us visibly with the _means of support._ That which closes all above, the roofing, has no longer to support a weight, but merely to be supported, and is bound to declare in itself this definite aspect that it no longer supports anything. In other words, it must be so constructed that it is actually unable to support, and consequently fine down to an angle, whether it be acute or obtuse. Ancient temples have in consequence no horizontal roofing, but two roof surfaces which meet at obtuse angles, and it is out of consideration for beauty that the building is thus terminated. In short, roof surfaces that are horizontal do not give us the appearance of a building entirely complete; a horizontal flat may always add further weight to its height; this the line in which inclining roof surfaces terminate is no longer able to do. To take an analogous case in the art of painting, it is the pyramidal form in the grouping of figures which best satisfies artistic taste.

(_γ_) The final determining factor which we have to consider is that of the _enclosing_, the _walls_, and _partitions._ Columns no doubt support and form a boundary, but they do not enclose; they are, on the contrary, as such boundary, incompatible with the interior which is hemmed in by walls. If we require such an absolute enclosure we must have also thick and solid dividing walls erected. This is actually the case in temple construction.

(_αα_) We have nothing further to add with respect to walls except the fact that they must be built in a straight and even line and perpendicularly for the reason that walls that rise obliquely to acute and obtuse angles present the threatening aspect of collapse, and possess no direction once and for all securely defined; it can merely appear as a matter of chance that they are reared in whatever more acute or obtuse angle it may happen to be. The demand of scientific rule and purpose alike is here also once more for the right angle.

(_ββ_) Owing to the fact that walls act as enclosures no less than as means of support, while we restricted the true function of the column to that of mere support, we approximate to the conception that where we have to satisfy these two distinct needs of support and enclosure columns may be set up and may be united to one another by means of thick walls in such partitions; it is thus that we get _half_ _columns._ In this way, for example, Hirt, following Vitruvius, makes a start in his original type of construction with four corner-posts. If the necessity of an enclosure is to be satisfied no doubt our columns, if we are obliged to include such, must be walled up and it is not difficult to prove that half columns date from remote antiquity. Hirt, for instance[89], affirms that the employment of half columns is as old as the art of building itself, and deduces their origin from the circumstance that columns and piers supported and carried the roofing and other superimposed structures, but at the same time rendered partition walls necessary as a protection against sun and inclement weather. Since, however, the columns already supported the main building in a sufficient manner, it was not necessary to erect

## partition walls of either so thick or firm a material as the columns,

and consequently this latter, as a rule, abutted on the exterior of the building. This theory of their origin may be correct, but for all that half columns are repugnant to a rational view of them; we have, in short, here two ends standing side by side in _opposition_, and essentially _confounding each other_, without any law of necessity being disclosed. It is of course possible to defend half columns, if the point of departure in considering even the column is so strictly that of the structure of wood, that we regard their essential function to be that of an enclosure. Placed in thick walls, however, the column has lost all its significance; it is degraded to the mere post. The true column is in its nature round, essentially complete, and expresses by this very trait of exclusiveness in a visible way that it is antagonistic to an even surface, and, consequently, every inclusion in a wall. If, therefore, we desire to have the support of walls such must be even, not circular columns, but surfaces which can be extended evenly in a wall.

As far back as 1773 Goethe exclaimed with spirit to the like effect in his youthful essay, "On the German Art of Building": "What does it matter to us, you philosophical art-critic of the latest French school, that original man, spurred on by his needs to invent, drove into the ground four trunks, then fastened four poles on top and covered the whole with branches and moss. And after all it is wholly false to say that this hut of yours was the first begotten on earth. Two poles that cross each other at their ends, two behind and one stuck diagonally above in forest fashion is and remains, as you may any day see for yourself in the huts of the fields and the vineyard slopes, a far earlier discovery from which it is quite impossible for you to deduce a principle for your pig-stye." In other words Goethe seeks to prove that columns enclosed in walls placed in buildings whose essential object is that of mere enclosure have no meaning. This is not because he would not recognize the beauty of the column. On the contrary, he is loud in its praise. "But take good care," he adds, "not to employ them improperly: it is their nature to _stand up free._ Woe to the wretch who has soldered their slender growth in blockish walls." It is from such a point of view that he proceeds to consider the building art of the Middle Ages and our own time and affirms: "The column is of no value as a constituent feature of our dwellings: it rather contradicts the essence of all our buildings. Our houses do not consist of _four columns_ in four corners; they consist of _four walls_ on four sides, which stand _in the place of all columns_, totally exclude such, and where they are thrust in they are a burdensome superfluity. This applies to our palaces and churches, subject to one or two exceptions, which it is not necessary to particularize." We have in the above statement, which is the result of independent observation of the facts, the principle of the column correctly expressed. The column must place its foot down in front of the wall and appear in complete independence of it. In our more modern architecture no doubt we find pilasters freely used; architects, have, however, regarded them as the repeated adumbration of previous columns, and made them flat rather than round.

(_γγ_) From this it is clear that though no doubt walls may serve as support, yet, for the reason that the function of support is already independently performed by columns, they must, on their part in finished classical architecture be accepted as essentially having for their object the enclosure. If they are taken as columns are taken, to provide means of support, the essentially distinct defining functions of these latter are not, as is most desirable, performed also as by distinct constituent parts of the building[90], and the conception of what walls ought to provide is impaired and confused. We consequently find even in temples that the central hall, where the statue of the god was placed, to enclose which was the main object, is often left open in the upper part. If, however, a roofing is required, the claims of the lofty style of beauty made it necessary that the same should be supported independently. In other words the direct imposition of entablature and roof on the enclosing walls is purely a matter of necessity and need; it is not appertinent to free architectural beauty, because in the art of classical buildings we require as means of support neither partitions nor walls, which would be rather derogatory to the design in so far as--we have already noticed the fact--they put together contrivances and a wall-space of greater extent than is actually necessary.

These would be the main distinguishing features which in classical architecture we have to keep apart.

(_c_) Although we may then, on the one hand, declare it as a principle of first importance that the distinctions which have been summarily indicated must appear with their _differences_ emphasized, it is equally necessary on the other that they should be _united in a whole._ We will shortly, in conclusion, draw attention to this union which in architecture will be rather and simply a juxtaposition, association, and a thorough eurhythmy of the entire construction. Generally speaking the Greek temple buildings present an aspect which both satisfies, and if we may use the expression, sates us to the full.

(_α_) There is no soaring up, but the whole just expands on the broad level and is extended without particular elevation. In order to view the building's face it is barely necessary to raise the sight with intention; it is, on the contrary, allured to the bare expanse, while the building art of Germany in the Middle Ages strives up almost without mass and soars. Among the ancients breadth, regarded as secure and convenient foundation on the earth, is the main thing. Height is rather borrowed from the height of man, and merely is increased in proportion as the building increases in breadth and width.

(_β_) Furthermore, embellishments are so effected that they do not impair the impression of simplicity. For much also depends on the mode of decoration. The ancients, more particularly the Greeks, preserve here the finest sense of proportion. Extensive surfaces and lines of entire simplicity, for instance, do not appear so large in this undivided simplicity as in the case where some variety, somewhat that destroys this uniformity is introduced, by which at once an extension of more definite outline is presented to the vision. If this subdivision, however, and its adornment is wholly elaborated in detail, so that we have nothing before us but a variety and its details, even the most imposing relations and dimensions appear to be crumbled away and destroyed. The ancients, therefore, as a rule are actuated in their works neither to let the same and their proportions by such means appear in any way greater than they actually are, nor do they break up the whole by means of interruptions and embellishments to the extent that--because all parts are small and a unity is absent which shall once more bring everything together and fuse it throughout--therefore the whole also shall appear as insignificant. To quite as little an extent are their works of beauty in their perfection merely piled up as mere weight on the ground, or tower up out of all relation to their breadth to the skies. They preserve in this respect, too, the mean of beauty, and offer at the same time in their simplicity necessary scope to a duly proportioned variety. Above all, however, the dominant feature of the whole and its simple particularities appear to permeate in the most transparent way through all and everything, and overmasters the individuality of the configuration precisely in the way that in the classical Ideal the universal substance retains its power to control what is accidental and particular, in which the same receives its living form, and to bring it into harmony with itself.

(_γ_) With regard to the disposition and articulation of the several parts of a temple we find, on the one hand, a very marked graduation of elaboration, and on the other much that is purely traditional. The main distinctions that have an interest for us in this inquiry are limited to the temple precinct (ναὸς), enclosed by walls containing the image of the god, also the dwelling in front (πρόναος), that in the rear (ὀπισθόδομος), and the colonnades that encircle the entire structure. A dwelling in front and behind with a series of columns before it had originally the typical form, which Vitruvius calls ἀμφιπρόστυλος; to this was afterwards added a row on either side of the building, that is the περίπτερος; finally we have the completest form of elaboration in the δίπτερος, where this row of columns is doubled throughout the circuit, and in the ὔπαιθρος colonnades detached from the walls, and which it is possible to pass round, as in the case of the colonnades above, are added in double rows with the interior of the ναὸς itself. For such a type of temple Vitruvius instances as an example the eight-columned temple of Minerva at Athens, and the ten-columned one of Olympian Jupiter[91].

We will pass over in this place the more detailed consideration of the number of columns no less than the nature of the intervening spaces between themselves and the walls, and merely draw attention to the unique significance which such colonnades and forecourts, or halls possessed in general for the Greek temple. In these prostyles and amphiprostyles, that is, these single and double colonnades, which brought you direct into the open sunshine, we observe that men can move about openly and free and can group themselves as they choose, or according to the chance of the moment. Columns are, in short, not an enclosure, but a limitation through which you can always pass, so that you can be partially within and without them at once, and at any rate can everywhere step from them into the open day. In the same way the long walls at the back of the columns do not permit of any pressure to one central point, whither our sight may instinctively turn when the passages are crowded. On the contrary the eye is rather diverted from such a point of unity in every direction; and instead of the conception of a congregation brought together for One purpose we observe a tendency outwards, and merely receive the impression of a means of spending the time devoid of seriousness, light-hearted, idle, and provocative of chatter. Within the enclosure no doubt we have suggested a profounder aim, but even here we find surrounding features[92], which more or less indicate that we are not to take such a purpose too seriously. Consequently the impression of such a temple, though no doubt simple and imposing, is at the same time gay, open, and pleasing to the sense; the entire building, in short, is rather arranged as a place for standing about in, strolling round, for ingress and egress than in order to enable an assembly of persons to concentrate their numbers in one spot shut off from the rest of the world.

3. THE DIFFERENT CONSTRUCTIVE TYPES OF CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE

Casting our glance now on the different forms of construction which offer us the predominant examples of distinctive type in classical architecture we may emphasize the following as most important.

(_a_) What first arrests our attention in this field are those kinds of building whose lines of distinction are most noticeable in their _columns_; for this reason I shall myself, too, limit myself to a statement of the pre-eminently characteristic traits of the various types of column.

The most famous among the orders of columns are the _Doric_, _Ionic_, and _Corinthian_, over whose architectural beauty and adaptation to definite purpose, neither the research of earlier times nor our own has been able to add anything. For we may assume that the Tuscan, or, according to Hirt[93], the ancient Greek type of building belongs in its undecorative crudeness to the original and simple type of wood structure, not to the architecture of beauty, and the so-called Roman order of columns is of no real moment, being merely an increase in the decorative character of the Corinthian. The important points in this inquiry are the relation of the height of columns to their thickness, the type of base and capital to be distinguished in each case, and, finally, the greater or less intervening spaces between the columns. With regard to the first, if the column is not of a height four times as large as its diameter it appears too bulky and depressed; if its height, however, exceeds such a proportion by being ten times as large, the column will appear too slender to the eye, and too slim as a means of support. The respective intervals between the columns must, however, be considered in close relation to the above facts; if the columns appear more stout they should be placed nearer to one another, if on the contrary the impression they produce is one of slightness and lankness the intervals have to be larger. It is a matter of equal importance, and this is so whether the columns have a pedestal or not, whether the capital is of higher or less ample size, is without or with decoration, for it is by this means that the entire character of the column is altered. With regard to the column's shaft, however, the rule obtains that it should be smooth and devoid of decoration, although it does not rise throughout of the same thickness, but is appreciably more slender at the top than it is midway and at the base, and the change is such that there is a swelling which, though barely perceptible, is none the less present. In more recent times no doubt, notably in the Middle Ages, when the antique types of columns were converted to the use of Christian architecture, the smoothness of shaft was found to be too cold, and for this reason wreaths of flowers were entwined round them, or columns of spiral form were permitted no doubt on similar grounds; this, however, is inadmissible and opposed to the best taste, because the true function of the column is simply that of support, and to carry this out they ought to rise in a secure and straight line and be self-subsistent[94]. The only divergency from the rule in columnar structure which the ancients admitted was that of the groove, a variation which, as Vitruvius points out, made such appear broader than when their surface is wholly smooth. Such grooving we find carried out very extensively.

I will now indicate more closely the main distinguishing features of the Doric, Ionian, and Corinthian order of columns respectively.

(_α_) In primitive buildings _security_ of structure is the fundamental characteristic beyond which architecture fails to go; consequently it does not as yet dare to risk relations of a slender kind with the bolder lightness which belongs to them, but rests satisfied with forms of greater bulk. This is the case in the Doric type of building. We find here that the material aspect with its onerous weight still is that which is most influential, and is particularly apparent in the relations of breadth and height. When a building is erected in lightness and freedom the burden of heavy masses is overcome; if on the contrary its disposition is one which suggests mainly breadth and a low elevation the prevailing impression, as in the Doric style, is that of stability and solidity, subservient to the dominant force of gravity.

Consistently with this character Doric columns, if contrasted with the other two orders, are the broadest and lowest. The more ancient examples do not rise above a height which is six times their diameter, and not unfrequently they are merely four times that breadth; for this reason they give, by virtue of their unwieldiness, the impression of an earnest, simple, and unadorned manliness, such as we have exemplified in the temples at Paestum and Corinth. The later examples of the Doric order, however, extend their columns to a height of seven times this unit of measure, and, for buildings other than temples, Vitruvius adds yet another half diameter. More generally, however, the distinctive character of the Doric type consists in this that it approximates most nearly to the primitive simplicity of the wood building, although it is more receptive than the Tuscan to decorative work and embellishments. The columns, however, have almost without exception no distinctive base; they stand up directly on their foundation[95], and their capitals are arranged in the simplest way out of ovolo ornament and plinth. The shaft is sometimes left smooth, sometimes grooved with twenty drills, which frequently were flat for one third of the way from the base, and hollowed out in circular form the rest of the way[96]. As regards the interval between the columns, according to the older monuments, the breadth is twice the diameter of a column, and only a few exceed this by a width between two and two and a half diameters. Another peculiarity of the Doric type of building in which it approaches the type of wood construction consists in triglyphs and metopes. In other words triglyphs indicate in the frieze the tops of the beams of the entablature with which the architrave culminates inserted there by means of prismatical incisions[97], while the metopes fill up the spaces between one beam and another, and in the Doric construction still retain the form of the square[98]. As a decoration they are frequently covered with reliefs, while beneath the triglyphs, which rest on the architrave, and as a culmination to the surfaces of the cornice on their lower side, we have for embellishment six small conical bodies, technically known as drops.

(_β_) In the Doric style we are already made aware of an advance in the characteristics of a solidity which affects us with pleasure. In Ionic architecture this upward progress is further emphasized in a type notable for its slenderness, charm, and grace, if still expressed in a simple way. The height of the columns varies between that of seven and ten times the width of the diameter at the base, and is determined, according to the conclusions of Vitruvius, pre-eminently by the breadth of the intervening spaces of the columns, that is to say, where they are wider the columns appear thinner, and consequently more slender, where they are more narrow, however, they appear stouter and of less height. For this reason the architect is forced, in order to avoid an excess of thinness or bulk, in the first case to reduce the height, and in the second to increase it. In the case, then, where the intervals exceed three diameters the height of the columns will merely carry eight of such, where there is an interval of two and a quarter rising to three, the height will rise to eight and a half diameters. If the columns, however, are separated only by the width of two diameters, the height must be extended to nine and a half times the unit, and in the extreme case of an interval of but one and a half times, such height will even rise to ten times the breadth of diameter. However, cases such as these latter ones appear very seldom, and, in so far as we may judge from such monuments of the Ionic type of building that have come down to us, the ancients made very scanty use of those relations which necessitated the more lofty columns.

The Ionic type is further distinguished from the Doric in this that the Ionic columns do not rise directly with their shaft from the substructure, but are set up on a variously articulated pedestal, and then in unobtrusive rejuvenescence rise lightly in their slender height to their capitals with a deeper hollowing out than in the Doric type, a broad grooving of four and twenty grooves. It is especially in this characteristic that the Ionic temple at Ephesus is distinguishable from and in contrast to the Doric at Paestum. In the same way we find an increase of variety and grace in the Ionic capital. It has not only a carved coussinet[99], little ledge and plinth, but receives both to the right and left a spiral winding, and at the sides a decorative kind of cushion, from which is derived its title of the pulvinated capital. The volutes at the end of the pad or cushion indicate the end of the column, which, however, may rise to a still greater elevation, but in this possible increase makes itself essentially a curve.

Compatibly with this slender character of the pleasing decoration of its columns the Ionic type of building requires a less bulky weight in its beams, and is concerned in this way too to secure an increase of grace. By doing so it no longer suggests as a predecessor as the Doric does the wood construction, and consequently suffers triglyphs and metopes to fall away in the flat frieze, introducing in their place as its principal means of decoration, heads of sacrificial animals united with flowery coils, and, instead of the suspended mutule[100] tops, we find tooth-like ornamentation[101].

(_γ_) Finally, to come to the _Corinthian_ order, we find it is in fundamentals composed upon the Ionic, only that with a similar slenderness it is elaborated in more tasteful luxuriance, and unfolds the consummate finish of adornment and embellishment. Like it content to possess the definite and various divisions of its structure as a legacy from the wood building, it emphasizes the same without permitting their origin to be conspicuous by means of its decorative work, and expresses, in its manifold ledges and borders on cornice and beam, on its weather moulds, its moulding flutes, its variously articulated pediments and its more luxuriant capitals, a multiplicity of pleasing features.

The Corinthian column, it is true, does not exceed in height the Ionic, rising as a rule with a grooving of similar character, merely eight times or eight and a half times as high as the diameter of the lower portion of the column, but it appears more slender and above all more exuberant by virtue of a loftier capital. For the capital's height is one and an eighth times the diameter beneath, and has at each of its four corners more slender volutes which suffer the pulvination of the previous type to fall off, while the part below is decorated with acanthus leaves. The Greeks have a charming tale relative to this. A maiden of exceptional beauty, they tell us, died. Her nurse collected her playthings in a little basket and placed it on her grave, where an acanthus plant sprang up. The leaves very soon embraced the basket, and it was this which suggested the thought of the capital of a column.

Of other points of difference between the Corinthian and the Ionic and Doric orders, I will only further mention the delicately curved mutules under the cornices, and the projection of the water moulding, and the indentations and corbel-heads on the cornice[102].

(_b_) We may, _secondly_, regard the _Roman_ type of building as an intermediate form standing between that of Greek and Christian architecture, in so far as here we find mainly the application of arch and vaultings. It is not possible to determine with accuracy the time when the construction of arches was first discovered; it appears, however, certain that neither the Egyptians, despite the great progress they made in the arts of building, nor the Babylonians, Israelites, and Phoenicians were cognisant of the _ogive_ or the _vault._ The monuments of Egyptian architecture at any rate only show us that when it was a question of superimposing a roof over the interior of a building the one means the Egyptians had at their disposal was that of placing huge slabs of stone across like beams in horizontal position. If it was required to arch up broad entrances, or cross arches they knew of no other way of doing this than letting one stone on either side project forward, with another still more projecting one above it, so that the side walls gradually approached upwards until they reached a point where only one stone was necessary to close the remaining space between. Where such an expedient was not necessary they covered the spaces with huge slabs of stone arranged across in the manner of rafters.

Among the Greeks we do, I believe, find monuments in which the arch construction has already been adopted, but they are rare; and Hirt, who has written with most authority over the building and the history of the building of antiquity, affirms that among such monuments we can rely on none with security as dating from a time previous to that of Pericles. In other words, in Greek architecture the features which are characteristic and elaborated are the column and beam in horizontal position, so that we find here the column very little used in a relation which lies apart from its true function, namely that of supporting beams. Moreover the arch that is vaulted from two piers or columns, and the knob-like formation, connotes a yet further feature, for we find here that the column already begins to forsake its determinate attribute of support. For the circular arch in its rise, its flexure and its declivity is related to a centre which has nothing to do with the column as a means of support. The separate parts of the circular arch are carried in mutual opposition; they support and prolong each other in a way that shows them far more remote from the direct assistance of the column than is the horizontally superimposed beam.

In _Roman_ architecture, then, as stated, the arch-construction and vaulting is of very common occurrence, or rather we have certain remains which we can only attribute to the age of the Roman kings, if we may fully believe the evidence of later times. Of this type are the catacombs and cloaca, which were vaulted, but must be regarded as works of a more recent restoration. The most probable discoverer yet suggested of the vault is Democritus[103], who occupied himself in a variety of ways with mathematical problems and is held to be the discoverer of lithotomy.

One of the most famous buildings of Roman architecture, in which the circular arch appears as fundamental type is the Pantheon of Agrippa dedicated to Jupiter Ultor, which, in addition to the statue of Jupiter, contained colossal images of gods in no less than six other niches, namely, Mars, Venus, the deified Julius Caesar as well as three others whose identity we cannot fix with accuracy. In either side of these niches stood two Corinthian columns, and the whole was vaulted with one majestic vault in form of the half globe and corresponding to the vault of heaven. With reference to the material of this vault we may note that it is not a stone one. In other words the Romans, in the majority of their vaultings, in the first instance carried out a construction of wood, and covered the same with a composition of chalk and puzzolana cement, which was made of the dust of a light kind of tufa and broken tile shards. When this composition was dry the whole was formed into a mass so that the wooden scaffolding could be removed and the vaulting, by virtue of the lightness of its material and the stability of its consolidation, exercised only an insignificant pressure on the walls.

(_c_) The architecture of the Romans possessed moreover generally, and apart from this novel employment of arch construction, an entirely different scope and character than that of Greece. The Greeks distinguished themselves, while carrying throughout their work its main purpose, and by virtue of their perfection as artists, in the nobility, the simplicity no less than the airy delicacy of their decorations. The Romans on the contrary are, as artists, at least on the mechanical side of construction more rich and more ostentatious, but at the same time of less nobility and grace. Add to this in their architecture we meet with a variety of intention which was unknown to the Greek. As I have already observed the Greeks entirely devoted the splendour and beauty of art to public objects. Their private dwellings remained insignificant. Among the Romans, however, not only do we find an increase of public buildings, whose main purpose of construction was splendidly embellished in theatres, spaces for animal combats and other means of public sport, but architecture received a deliberate impulse in the direction of private use. More especially after the civil wars villas, baths, colonnades, flights of steps were constructed with the imposing character of the most luxurious extravagance, and by this means a new opening was made for the arts of building, which also included that of gardening, which was perfected in a way that evinced very considerable talent and taste. The villa of Lucullus is a striking example.

This type of Roman architecture has in many respects rendered service as a model to Italians and Frenchmen of t more recent times. Among ourselves we have for a long time to some measure followed in the steps of the Italians, and also to some extent in those of the French; finally men have once more devoted their attention to the Greeks, and have accepted as an object of imitation the antique in its purer form.

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